December, 2016

Our work

A little about Martin Harper

My passion for wildlife was stimulated in my teenage years, mainly thanks to my Mum (a biology teacher) who made me look at the world differently and being inspired by writers such as Paul Colinvaux. This early interest developed into biological research in my 20s, when I did practical conservation work in places such as the Comores and Mongolia.

Today, any free time I have I spend pottering around the flatlands of East Anglia or escaping to our hut on the Northumberland coast looking for wildlife and castles with my wife and children.

I studied Biological Sciences at Oxford and Conservation at UCL, and worked at Wildlife and Countryside Link before spending five years as Conservation Director at Plantlife.

I joined the RSPB as Head of Government Affairs in 2004, became Head of Sustainable Development in 2006, before becoming Conservation Director in 2011.

Martin Harper's blog

I’ve been the RSPB’s Conservation Director since May 2011. As I settle into the job, I’ll be blogging on all the big conservation topics and providing an inside view of our conservation projects. I hope you enjoy reading it and feel inspired to join in t

For the past two weeks, my colleagues Sarah Nelson and Georgina Chandler have been in Mexico attending the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. They have been working with our BirdLife International partners to encourage the nations of the world to intensify efforts to halt biodiversity loss. Here is their assessment of progress that has been made...

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10 Highlights from COP 13

Now that the ceremonial gavel has come down of 38 decisions and 5,000 participants from over 196 countries have returned home, what can we say has been achieved? Here are our top ten highlights....

1. Securing an excellent decision on mainstreaming on environmental reform of the agricultural, fisheries and forestry sectors which:

Calls on governments to phase out environmentally harmful agricultural subsidies and use regulation and incentives to reduce habitat loss, increase water efficiency and prevent the inappropriate use of fertiliser and pesticides.

2. Making progress on EBSAs (Ecologically and Biologically Significant Marine Areas) including the acceptance of 74 new EBSA’s which incorporate important seabird habitat mapped by the BirdLife International Marine Programme

3. Collaborating with other NGOs here (including WWF, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the wider BirdLife family) and discussing future work in the lead up to 2020 and beyond. Uniting to deliver a common message has ensured that we have had maximum impact over the past few weeks. We look forward to working with our new “wider family” in the lead up to 2020. We closed today with a joint statement from us all saying we would be working together in the lead up to 2020 to hold countries to account for their commitments.

4. Raising awareness (and hopefully increasing ambition) through our work on the Aichi targets and maps which demonstrate how collective efforts are currently failing nature. The European Commission have indicated that they are keen to discuss how they can make progress under the Maltese Presidency, which is good news.

5. Being given the opportunity to lead a session at forest and agriculture day, where we could profile RSPB’s work on sustainable land use in West Africa, with an audience of land use experts from around the world.

6. Announcing UK Government support for the eradication of invasive mice on Gough Island and thereby protecting the endangered Tristan Albatross and Gough Bunting (the UK Government announced this in the final plenary and acknowledged the fact they were doing this in conjunction with the RSPB).

7. Profiling the Key Biodiversity Areas work and RSPB’s involvement in this new exciting initiative, as well as helping secure a decision recognising Key Biodiversity Areas as a priority for the establishment of protected areas.

8. Profiling the wonderful work of RSPB and Birdlife Partners in their protection of Gola and Harapan forests (shown above in Clare Kendall's image).

9. The UK delegation who, despite having a very small delegation compared to other EU countries, could constantly be seen running around, in the thick of the action and providing technical support to the Commission. Amongst all of that they still managed to find the time to fit in various stakeholder meetings with us and help us in achieving our objectives. As well as to announce joining two new initiatives – the Coalition of the willing on Pollinators and the Honolulu Challenge on Invasive Alien Species.

10. Meeting and working with the wonderful BirdLife family – BirdLife Partners from Mexico, India, Germany, US, Botswana, Uganda, the UK and the BirdLife Secretariat attended over the past two weeks. It was an absolute pleasure to work with them all.

There are those that say that these multi-lateral environmental agreements are just talking shops, that they have become overly bureaucratic and that the outcomes don’t mean anything and are not taken seriously by countries when they get back home. And if we look at the very disappointing results of our country map progress report, one could be forgiven for saying they may be right.

But imagine life without a CBD – a world where there was no overarching UN biodiversity convention, where countries from almost every nation of the world never met to discuss the main threats and issues facing biodiversity, and didn't set global targets to tackling these and then never discussed how to work collectively to meet these targets - the world’s biodiversity would be in an even worse state.

Those concerned that in an increasingly isolationist world, the CBD might collapse should remember that it is not the CBD process which is broken. The process works well (as we saw this past two weeks with a 38 excellent decisions agreed), it is the lack of political will to take these decisions and implement them back at home.

And that is why, in 2017, we need nations of the world to roll up their sleeves and fight to do whatever nature needs.

At this time of year, when the days are still getting shorter, energy levels are low and you are surrounded by people with colds, we all need something to make us feel better. So, to bring early Christmas cheer, here are twelve highlights from the RSPB year. None of these would be achieved without the support of our members and the the dedication of our staff/volunteers working alongside our partners. Thank you for everything that you have done to help.

As you read the stories below, be reminded that, despite all of the pressures, together we make a difference for nature. And be optimistic that we can do even greater things next year.

Have a great break over Christmas and best wishes for 2017.

RSPB highlights of 2016

1. We continue to grow the number and size of our nature reserves to make more space for nature. In 2016 the RSPB added nearly 1500ha to our owned or leased land - including a new reserve in Scotland, where we will work with the local conservation group to manage the reedbed and open water habitat.

2. Our reserves provide a home for more than 16,000 species at over 210 sites covering more than 150,000 hectares. They continue to be an important safe haven for a wide variety of fauna and flora. For example, in 2016, for the second year running, both nightjar and woodlark were at their highest ever numbers on our heathland reserves and 2016 also saw the first evidence of wild breeding of smooth snakes at Aylesbeare – 7 years after the translocation project’s first release.

Image courtesy of Ben Andrew (rspb-images)

3. RSPB wetland reserves continue to support rare breeders and colonisers. Great white egrets fledged 10 young at Avalon Marshes and a pair of little gulls bred at RSPB Loch of Strathbeg and fledged two young. This is the first known successful nesting of little gulls in the UK. A once rare breeder and now brilliant example of a conservation success story, the numbers of booming bitterns on wetland reserves increased again to a record number of 161 at 76 sites.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

4. RSPB reserves continue to play a vital role in engaging with the public, increasing connection to nature and educating people. For example Bempton Cliffs on the Yorkshire coast is on track to experience a 10% growth in visitor numbers to their new Seabird Centre – with over 100,000 visitors being greeted face to face by staff and volunteers. This creates a unique opportunity to grow support for nature and build popular support and leverage for our casework and marine campaigns.

Image courtesy of Jesper Mattias (rspb-images)

5. RSPB and partnership species recovery projects continue to play an important role in protecting and enhancing biodiversity. The 2016 national cirl bunting survey has shown the population has increased to over 1000 pairs – 10 times more than in the 1980s. This is thanks to a highly successful reintroduction to Cornwall and decades of partnership working with farmers in Devon, supported by Natural England and grants to recover nature friendly farming.

Image courtesy of Andy Hay (rspb-images)

6. Our important island restoration programme continued this year: St Agnes and Gugh in the Scilly Isles were officially declared rat free in 2016, and the breeding population of Manx shearwater has increased from 22 pairs in 2013 (pre rat eradication) to 73 pairs in 2016 (post rat eradication) with two new locations colonised. The rat eradication phase of the Shiants project was completed in March, and so far no rat sign has been detected, which is bringing cheer to the local community! If all continues to go well we will officially be able to declare these islands rat free in winter 2017.

Image courtesy of Ed Marshall (rspb-images)

7. Our International work continues to yield fantastic results. 2016 saw the 10th anniversary of the hugely successful Albatross Task Force. Bycatch reductions of 80% have been achieved in five out of ten target fisheries and we are well on track to hit this figure in a further two.

Image courtesy of Alastair Wilson (rspb-images)

8. Captive breeding and development of Vulture Safe Zones as part of our vulture programme in Asia also continues, and in 2016 the Indian Government have pledged £200k per annum to the programme, after years of RSPB and BirdLife advocacy work.

Image courtesy of Chris Gomersall (rspb-images)

9. The UK Government has announced the creation of a 23-million-hectare fully-protected marine reserve around Ascension Island. That's roughly the size of the UK! We are delighted that the UK Government has pledged to safeguard at least 50 per cent of Ascension's rich waters, and it is a major success for our work on the UK Overseas Territories.

Image courtesy of Jolene Sim (Ascension Island Government)

10. The 2016 highlight of our work in the Gola forest landscape was the designation of the Gola National Park by the Government of Liberia in September. A variety of livelihoods projects are ongoing, such as building the capacity of over 3,000 farmers in Gola-Sierra Leone in the 70,000ha of forests and farms surrounding the protected areas. This led to the establishment of the first cocoa farmer association, and collection of the first Gola cocoa beans for export in early 2017. Studies have also shown the population of the critically endangered West African Chimp in Gola-Sierra Leone is stable, which is the only example across its entire home range where it is otherwise declining. Finally, we are selling independently verified carbon credits from Gola Rainforest in Sierra Leone towards funding this vitally important tropical forest conservation.

11. Fighting to protect our most precious wildlife sites remains vitally important. In 2016 we felt vindicated and very relieved when a judicial review found in RSPB’s favour after we legally challenged the Scottish Ministers' consents for four large offshore windfarms in the outer firths of the Forth and Tay. These developments would lead to thousands of seabirds including gannets, puffins, kittiwakes and other species being killed every year. Unfortunately, the Scottish Ministers have decided to appeal this decision and so we will be back in court again in 2017. However, we remain confident our case is robust and hope that our actions will encourage other developments to be sited in less sensitive locations in future.

Image courtesy of Andy Hay (rspb-images)

12. And finally...we saved the laws that protect nature! The importance of rallying support behind campaigns was illustrated by the amazing response to our Defence of the Directives campaign. The RSPB joined forces with over 100 other environmental groups to tell European leaders not to weaken the EU Nature Directives. Over half a million people joined us in responding to the public consultation. At every stage in the debates and discussions since, our politicians have highlighted the vast public support for nature protection that we've shown. On 7th December 2016, we received the fantastic news that the hard work was all worth it – the EU Nature Directives will remain unchanged, and there will be a plan for better implementation and enforcement.

Last night, I participated in a debate about our vision for 2040. The context, of course, was the Conservative Government’s 2015 manifesto commitment to restore biodiversity in 25 years which will be brought to life through Defra’s ‘soon’ to be published 25 year environment framework.

To prepare for the debate, I thought I would see what the futurists are predicting about social trends, technological advancements and political developments...

...global temperatures will be 2⁰C above pre-industrial levels triggering a large-scale melting of the permafrost and an acceleration in global temperature rises resulting in catastrophic impacts for people and wildlife

...there will have been major extinctions of animal and plant life including the loss of 50% of amphibians and 20% of birds in Europe; less than 2% of coral reefs will be remaining; nearly half of the Amazon rainforest destroyed with 2000 tree species becoming extinct

You can see why the 21st century has been categorised as a period of “an increasingly globalised humanity facing climate change, dwindling resources, overpopulation and technological upheaval”.

Scanning the horizon for a brighter future for people and wildlife (Andy Hay, rspb-images.com)

We’re currently on this pathway and it’s clear that we have our work cut out to avoid this dystopian view of the future.

I lay this out not to hasten the advance of mass depression, or to encourage you to give up and go party but to stress that we really do need to act and we need to act now not towards the end of the 25 year plan.

The impact on the natural environment is a function of how many people there are on the planet, how much they consume and available technology. Given current fertility rates, and assuming there are no major human catastrophes, global population will have reached 9 billion by 2040 leading to a 50% increase in demand for energy, 50% increase in demand for food and 30% increase in demand for water. Unless we find a development pathway which decouples growth from economic harm, it is difficult to see how we can avoid the apocalyptic future described above.

Yet, the world has a plan to tackle climate change and I am confident that technological advances will allow us to fully debarbonise the economy. While current national greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitments are inadequate to keep global temperature rises below 2.4⁰C-2.7⁰C, it is not unrealistic to believe that technological advancements and growing public pressure will mean that we will have a chance to keep within the safe limits of 1.5⁰C set out in the Paris climate agreement. But hope and faith is insufficient, we need governments to plan, and most of all to act, to make this future become reality.

To avoid mass extinction we have to redouble our efforts to meet the Convention on Biological Diversity 2020 targets – especially to increase the amount of land and sea that is well managed for nature. But we also need to tackle the major drivers of decline (aka the four horsemen of the ecological apocalypse): habitat destruction, invasive non-native invasive species, pollution (including climate change) and over-exploitation.

These issues are deeply complex and challenging and require political effort equivalent to that which has been afforded to climate change. For example...

...fundamental reform of our food and farming is essential. Changes in agriculture has been identified as the primary driver of change in nature both within the UK (for species assessed through State of Nature) and globally (for birds assessed by BirdLife International). What’s more a billion people go to bed hungry each night while a billion people are overweight or obese. Within the UK, as a result of the Brexit vote and our expected withdrawal from the European Union’s Common Agriculture Policy, we have a once in a generation opportunity to rethink our farming and landuse policy. We must believe that we can lead the world in driving genuinely environmentally sustainable agriculture.

...greater action must be taken to control invasive species and intensify biosecurity efforts. We have, over the past decade, successfully eradicated non-native species as part of island restoration projects and I am delighted that plans are in place to extend this efforts. Yet, finances are limiting our capability to keep up with the challenge which is growing inexorably as global trade intensifies. Whilst the future of the EU Birds and habitats directives is thankfully now more secure (see here) there is still much work to be done to ensure the EU regulation on Invasive species is not weakened and is fully transposed into UK law.

... the value of nature need to be captured in decision-making. Our thinking about natural capital must improve and new policies developed to make it easier to invest in nature’s recovery, both for nature and for the benefits it brings us.

... people’s everyday connection with nature needs to be improvedfor our well-being today and to help create the environmental leaders tomorrow. We will know if we are on the right path if we see new interventions such as a) Defra and the Department of Health rolling out an extensive programme of natural health provision to transform the way we improve mental and physical health or b) Defra and the Department for Education revising the curriculum to make caring for the environment a key part of learning. We need these big transformative changes if we are to improve peoples lives and save nature.

I shall be 70 in 2040 and probably/hopefully be on the cusp of retirement. I want to be able to look back and feel that collectively we did a good job, that we did manage to pass on to our children the natural environment in a better state than we inherited.

Anything less is too painful to contemplate.

That’s why our Government’s 25 year plan for the environment needs to be ambitious and groundbreaking. Get it wrong and we will no longer be living in a green and pleasant land. Get it right and we can be proud of what we will achieve and have the confidence to inspire others around the world through our own actions.